“I went to the midnight release of Halo 3, an M rated game, and I saw about a dozen teen and pre-teen kids with their parents. Other parents were talking about how their kids were sleeping and they came out to pick it up for them. The next day, some of those parents let their kids stay home from school to play the rated M game.”
Though parent’s negligence is indeed a problem, I think Halo 3 is a bad example. From my point of view, it was the definition of a “soft M”, as it’s called. There was some scattered cussing, but for the most part it was nothing I wouldn’t let a 14-year old play. There are quite a few games that are rated unfairly simply because there’s no rating level that would properly describe the content. In film, this problem was solved for the most part by creating the PG-13 rating (specifically for Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom), and the ESRB should do the same. What’s chiefly called for is a label between “Teen” and “Mature”, which some other ratings bureaus, such as Japan’s CERO, already have.
